Study Provides a New Vision for Allen and Pike Street Malls

Local residents turned out to give their opinions on the renovation of the malls early last summer.

Residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown have been fighting for improvements to the Allen and Pike Street pedestrian malls for more than a decade. Now, with the city’s Parks Department set to begin a $5.4 million renovation of the malls below East Broadway, their wait for meaningful action might be nearing an end.

The Hester Street Collaborative has just released a final report on the community’s visioning process (download the full study), which was coordinated by United Neighbors to Revitalize Allen and Pike (UNRAP) and will be used to inform the upcoming work.

The malls, which run along the center of Pike and Allen Streets from the East River to Houston Street, have long been in a state of disrepair. The pavement is cracked and uneven. There’s little vegetation. The roar of traffic is ever-present. "There’s a tremendous need for more viable open space here," says Annie Frederick, executive director of the Hester Street Collaborative. "This neighborhood has one of the lowest rates of public space in the city."

This April, a "demonstration mall" was completed on the block between Broome and Delancey, with new planter beds, benches, and sculptures. This summer, UNRAP invited neighborhood residents and organizers to a series of "Take Back Your Park" events to provide feedback and suggest improvements to the project — like raised planters to better buffer traffic noise, and a meandering path instead of a straight one.

Neighborhood kids help to create a vision at a "Take Back Your Park" event.

The new report incorporates comments and suggestions from those events, as well as the ideas of students from the New Design High School who studied the malls as part of an intensive summer program.

Among the priorities that emerged were green space, improved buffers from street noise and traffic, connection to the East River waterfront, and events and art exhibits that highlight and preserve the cultural history of the area. Known as "Avenue of the Immigrants," Allen Street is at the heart of an area that is rapidly changing due to gentrification (the malls themselves, constructed in the wake of slum clearance, occupy space where tenements once stood).

Support also emerged for traffic-calming measures and a bike lane that would connect to Manhattan Bridge access. The city DOT has said it is looking for funds from the state DOT to implement that type of improvement.

"What we’re hearing over and over again is that Allen Street is over-engineered as a road," said Frederick. "It’s not safe." She added that her experience working with the current DOT makes her optimistic about changes, although budgetary constraints will be a factor. "I’m very hopeful," she said. "There has been a real sense of inter-agency collaboration and willingness to listen to the local community. There’s been a shift in culture."

I wish them great success–*something* has to be done with Allen St. I live on First Ave, which becomes Allen St. Those “malls” just sit there wasting away; they hardly get used by anyone for anything. As a result, they look desolate, dirty, and dilapidated.

One thing I worry their proposal doesn’t do enough is WIDEN the mall. Then it needs to contain things that will truly attract people. Check out the lovely rendering on p. 12 of the pdf. Looks beautiful, but looks like the current narrowness is retained, and there’s not much to draw pedestrians. Without widening the mall and adding cool stuff, that beautifully re-surfaced narrow mall will stay just as desolate, and years later it will be just as dilapidated as present.

Good luck, that street (and Pike St.) needs a lot of life breathed into it–and it needs to be done in a way that will stick!

(I’d definitely say narrow the car space! Could be done by widening the mall AND building a separated bike lane. (The current class II bike lane there is, of course, always invaded by cars))

G

When I moved to Allen Street in 2004, I contacted the Parks Department about improvements to the malls, and was completely stonewalled.

Alas, now that things might actually be happening (maybe??), it’s too late for me — I moved uptown a month ago. Oh well! The renovated one looks nice; here’s hoping the others are soon to follow.

These renovations have been awesome. Hopefully people will want to use the parks again.

roger

Unfortunately, because Stanton Street has been blocked at Allen (and other changes), traffic has been so slow and clogged, drivers honk constantly. This is making living on Allen nearly intolerable!

Richard

I have lived on Pike all my life and I have never ever wanted to hang out in the middle of traffic. Even when I was kid, I never did. It’s noisy, there’s too much car exhaust, passing cars kick up dirt that blows into the air that end up in your eyes or breathed in.

I say move the traffic lanes towards the inside, use the very middle lane for a combined left turn lane. Give the reclaimed outer lane space to make real bike and parking lanes much like what has been done along First Ave. If there is space remaining, use it to widen the sidewalk a couple of feet. Yay wider sidewalks! Oh hey, how about using the reclaimed space to make a real bus lane. Who wouldn’t like buses that actually arrived on time for a change.